already in the lone churchyard on the hill, and the others lying ill
with measles and scarlet fever beside her. She had just walked many
weary miles that day, and had often begged from door to door for a
slice of bread for the starving little ones. It was of no use
now--they would die! They would never see their dear mother again.
This was a favourite imaginative situation of Polly's, but only
indulged when her companions were asleep, partly because she could
not trust confederates with her more serious fancies, and partly
because they were at such times passive in her hands. She glanced
timidly round; satisfied that no one could observe her, she softly
visited the bedside of each of her companions, and administered from
a purely fictitious bottle spoonfuls of invisible medicine. Physical
correction in the form of slight taps, which they always required,
and in which Polly was strong, was only withheld now from a sense of
their weak condition. But in vain, they succumbed to the fell
disease--(they always died at this juncture)--and Polly was left
alone. She thought of the little church where she had once seen a
funeral, and remembered the nice smell of the flowers; she dwelt
with melancholy satisfaction on the nine little tombstones in the
graveyard, each with an inscription, and looked forward with gentle
anticipation to the long summer days when, with Lady Mary in her
lap, she would sit on those graves clad in the deepest mourning.
The fact that the unhappy victims at times moved as it were uneasily
in their graves or snored, did not affect Polly's imaginative
contemplation, nor withhold the tears that gathered in her round
eyes.

[Illustration]

Presently the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscape